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You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker VTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. This episode of True Murder is brought to you by Audible, the world's leading name in digital audio books. When Jerry Hyman's son arrived at his father's home in Everett, Washington, he found his grandmother in Alzheimer's patient alone in the house, starving and dehydrated. His father was missing, the furniture was gone. Within hours, police realized that Jerry's living housekeeper, Barbara Ople,
had robbed him and fled, But where was Jerry. The next morning, Opal's eleven year old son led police to Jerry's body. Soon, stunned detectives were getting confessions from a rag tag group of teens and preteens. At Barbara Ople's command, they had set upon Jerry Hymen with knives, fists, and baseball bats and battered him to death. From thirteen year old Heather who frantically stabbed Jerry after having sex with her boyfriend, to seven year old Tiffany, who helped clean
up the blood. This is the horrifying true story of how a mother turned her children and their friends into stone cold killers and then rewarded them for their crime. The book that we're featuring this evening is Mum Said Kill, with my special guest, journalist and author Burrel Bear. Welcome back to the program, the incomparable burrough Bear.
It's always a pleasure to be on your show, Dad.
And it's always a pleasure to have you on my show. And the audience reacts accordingly. Let's get right down to this. Another incredible story here and the subsequent book Mum Said Kill before we start, let's sure, go ahead, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say, is my friend Tony Stevens, who was news director of the radio station ever Washington with the crime took place. If this murder, it's aftermath and the attempts by those involved to cover it up is so incredibly bizarre, so twist to the in both its conception and execution that I don't think we've ever witnessed a more tragic destruction of human life, not only
by homicide, but by the manipulation of vulnerable youngsters. Now, this story isn't know who done, it's how they held what ever happened in the first place.
Yes, absolutely, and that's what I like about your book, and we'll get to that as the story proceeds too. That this is again another we'll say typical birlbear in that there is the story, and then there is the story behind the story, and then the analysis of what we can possibly learn from, Like you say, such a senseless, bizarre, ridiculous waste of life. Anyway, let's get to let's get to some Let's get to some of the characters here.
In one of the main characters is Barbara Ople and in two thousand and one, when this crime occurs, she is thirty eight. But tell us about Barbara Opoles, much as you found about Barbara Ople her upbringing. What was Barbara Ople like? And before we talked about how she became in the position to be a caretaker for Jerry Hymen.
Essentially, i'd say that she was damaged in shipping and handling, and some of her contents may have settled. Even as a child. Her sister said that Barbara seemed to have some depooted problems, and an analysis of her medical examination whatever you want to call it evaluation, determined that she really did not have the thought capacity, the planning capacity
of a mature adult. She was pretty much on the same level as her kids, except she was the authority figure she By the time she was an adult, she got married. She had two kids by her husband. That marriage was a failure. They were divorced, and he moved off to Spokane and sent money for the kids, but apparently it wasn't getting there. I guess she did not
exactly have the world's best reputation. She was known as a loud, screaming, obnoxious woman who yelled at her kids, constantly dragged one kid through the mall by his hair. I mean, just you know, really domineering personality. But she also she was kind of on the same level as the kids. She did all the same things the kids did. She kind of played with them when they played, but when she went into that authority mode, all bets were off and the only way to stop the screaming, stop
the abuse was just do whatever Mom said. No matter what it.
Was now, where was the where was her husband? Is it Bill at this time? What was the marriage? How could you, I guess, characterize the marriage? And where the heck was he all this abuse? So tell us a little bit about his seven year marriage.
He didn't stick around very long. It was always very volatile. She was always screaming and yelling, and I guess he'd screaming yell back. Finally, he divorced her, moved off to the other side of the state. He didn't really get to see his kids. He wanted to, but you know, it was she was supposed to let him see the kids, but that that just wasn't working out. It was always a problem. She then had an affair with mister Gudeau,
who is the father of her young daughter, Tiffany. That's why Tiffany has a different last name than the other kids. Although she and mister Gudeau were.
Never married, and he'll come into play a little bit later as a kind of an important figure once against.
I'm in communication with his his his ex wife, Tricia. I'm pronouncing her name correctly. She also figures in the book quite promerly. As a matter of fact, at the very beginning, he was a colorful character that he was an admitted bank robber, but he didn't think that should affect the validity of his testimony in court. There's a really good muse that had nothing to do with his testimony.
Yes, good luck with that. Now we're talking about this place, Everett, Washington. Now tell us what it's a close proximity to, so that we know geographically what we're talking about here, and what's Everett is it? Is it a suburb or is it a small town? What's it really like?
It's a small town with its own rather historical identity. It's north of Seattle, just west of muckle Teo, which is another smaller town. But Everett at one time was a significant logging town in the Pacific Northwest. There's also a shipping from there. It's a lovely area. In fact, a lot of television shows shoot in Everett, Washington because it has a variety of architecture. It can stand in
for almost any city in America. So there's actually Warner Brothers even has a sound stage in muckle Teo, which is next door to Evert and they do a lot of filming up there.
Interesting. Now, tell us about this Jerry Hyman, And at this.
Jerry Hyman had worked for Boeing, the Plain Building Company. In fact, the largest building in the world, not the tallest, but the largest building in the world is in Everett, Washington, and that was the airplane manufacturing plant of Boeing was headquartered there, which is now but it was for many many years, and he worked for Boeing. Retired from there, and unfortunately he was diagnosed with cancer. He was faced
with a choice. He could to devote his time and energy to getting treeting for his cancer, or he could devote his time and energy to caring for his Alzheimer's afflicted mother. He chose to care for his mother. That was his entire focus, was not putting her off in a home or something, but taking care of her himself, living with her in the home, being a comfort to her, and concentrating more on the quality of life rather than
the amount of it, I guess. And he needed some help around the house, and he just happened to bump into I think of the dairy queen, you know, fast food place, Barbara opol who had lived in so many different places. She'd been evicted continually or kicked out for not paying rent, living in her car with her three kids, and struck up a conversation with him, and she told him that she'd be a wonderful caretaker for his agent
and in for her mother. And she convinced him and he moved to her and her kids into his home and they began taking care of this woman that the kids officially called grandma. And actually they did take good care of her when they were doing that.
Now, how long was it? And and just to introduce the characters as well, that there is Derek, which is eleven years old, and Tiffany, the daughter, is seven years old, and Heather is at the time of the thirteen right, okay, so and the grandmother go ahead.
I was gonna say Heather was to sound very strange to say, a wonderful kid. She did very very well in school, academically, charming personality and a sports star, A legend, A sports legend at an early age, especially in terms of basketball, A citer.
She was.
A great sportsperson, very athletic, and excelled on the team. Is the only problem was that the mother would show up and scream at her from the sidelines. But she was a very accomplished kid. I mean if you were to say, what kid in this school is going to commit violent murder, her name would not even be anywhere near the list. There's something that no one could conceive of her being involved in such a thing.
Now, she was a really they said, a brilliant kid. So she's a very bright kid at the very least. What else was how else would you characterize her personality? Was she somewhat? She was outgoing? Was she shy? Was she a little naive?
Was?
What was the truth?
Characterized her? Characterized her as naive at all, especially considering the life she'd lit living in a variety of places, having a dominating mother. I think perhaps her life really maybe flourished in that school environment away from home because she was admired, she was respected, she was accomplished, and she was very comfortable in the in the the the realm of school. And then everybody liked her and she was good looking kid.
Now we we talked about Jerry Hyman a little bit. But what's interesting in your book is you talk about that a testament to the to this man's personality is that three of his really good friends happened to be ex wives.
Ex wives. Yes, this is the guy Jerry, from everything I've learned about him, and I mentioned this the book, is one of these people that everybody liked. And maybe his problem with the marriages was in the plurality the probably women was only in the plurality, not of the personality. And his ex wives were still is among his best friends, and he was seriously considering remarrying one of them for
the second time, I think her third time. I started to keep track, But everybody liked Jerry and he alway, we saw the best in everybody and brought out the best in other people. I've never heard an unkind word about Jerry on.
Now. This is important to later in the story in that for all accounts Jerry's this is really great guy that has no problems with anybody, not with his kids, not with his uh, not with anyone. And and in it by all accounts too, he was very happy with the work that Barbara was doing, and he was happy with them being there in her entire family, her and her kids, and he was very generous with them as well. Was there any dark was there any sort of dark
personality that he had? Did Jerry get drunk once in a while, and maybe he went the Heather was there, was there anything like that.
He did drink, but he was not physically abusive, or i'd say the full extent of his quotes verbal abuse is he thought sometimes she dressed a little slutty, and he said so, you know, he would speak his mind. He wasn't the father, He wasn't enjoy but you know, he was an adult that he would make comments that you know, they should, you know, dress a little more conservatively. When when she went out with the other kids, he was very generous. He bought them all Christmas presents and
very forgiving and overlooking of the fault. One time, Barbara, the primary caregiver of his mother, forged a check from I think about twelve hundred bucks and she had some excuse and he let it go. In fact, he even said to some of his friends that he was if you hear that I got murdered, I wouldn't be said Barbara did it. But he wouldn't get rid of her.
He wouldn't fire her because weighing one thing against another, she and the kids took great care of his mom, kept the place very clean and nice, and he could put up with a little bit of a little bit of you know, figured life short, he die of cancer. He just wants to take care of his mom. He doesn't need the aggravation, you know. Okay, we'll just let let some things slide.
Now. Was there when you talked about when I mentioned about was there any type of possible verbal abuse something that later on in the story, as we'll explain, is important if it's true or not true. When you say he thought she dressed a little bit slutty, did he indicate that use that kind of language or was he reasonable in his criticism, because then someone can turn that around. You know, a young girl is very sensitive and make misconstrue.
Well, you know, I'll let me give you an example here. All right, everyone that got roped into killing Jerry Heather's friends, they all heard from her mother how horribly abusive Jerry was to her. And her best friend was this girl from every middle school named Mary and Oliver. And she says, this is from what the police officers told me. She
told us of her involvement. She said that she'd been approached by Barbara Opel to kill Jerry Hymen, but Oliver declined because she didn't think she could do such a thing. She was always told that by Barbara that Heather was being abused. It was always Barbara telling people that all
the people who were angry about it never saw it themselves. Now, Marian did get in trouble with Jerry because she hit him once with a baseball bat, not the time he was murdered, but at another time, and he didn't think they was particularly amusing to get out of there, So why did she hit him with a baseball?
Back then?
She was being very, very strange, And you know, it was one of those things of kind of a kid doing something that wasn't necessarily malicious to begin with. It just got a little out of hands. Sometimes kids swing things around and act a little peculiar, and their motives aren't really severely bad, but something unfortunate happens, and that was kind of a situation there. So Barbara kept telling
people how horribly abusive he was. Now, when he drank, he may may have been cranky, but he never hurt these people. He was always financially generous, overlooked their faults, made sure they were comfortable and happy, and he, after all, he thought enough of them that he trusted his beloved mother to them to take care of her. You know, feed her, bathe her, all that stuff.
Now let's get to because we were already speaking about it. Jerry has a son named Greg, and he hasn't seen him in five years. And like you had said that Jerry had just found out, and I guess that the son had found out. You can correct me if I'm wrong about the terminal cancer. And him and his wife were coming flying in from Arkansas to visit with the father. And that's when take it. Basically from there. They get off the plane, they expect Jerry to be I mean a.
Big build up. Not only was a big build up for Greg and his wife, but also for Jerry. He was so looking forward to seeing his son, and the son and his wife was so looking forward to seeing Dad. I mean Jerry went out and he bought all their favorite foods. I mean they were going to have a wonderful time, you know. I mean this is something level of expectation was right up there. And they get off
the plane expecting Dad to meet him. Dad's not there, and they wait and they wait and they wait and they call the house and there's no answer, which is double peculiar because even if Dad somehow got the time, is mixed up. Certainly Barbara, the caregiver, would answer the phone, but there was no answer. Finally, they took a cab
all the way from SeaTac Airport to Everett. Went to the house and no one's opening the door, and there were even things on the front ports had been left there for Jerry to give with them by actually his girlfriend or ex wife or whatever. Greg finally lets himself into the house. He finds an open window or something gets in there, and there's his grandmother, dehydrated, sitting at the table in the Berkeley empty room in a wheelchair, eating newspaper that it's on the table because there's only
things she could get to put in her mouth. Now, this obviously doesn't look good at all.
He has, and she soiled her and she's been sitting in her own and she's sitting in her own thesis for for this amount of time.
And none of this, of course makes an he's sense to him. Now, you can't really make sense out of something that doesn't make sense. So he doesn't quite know what to do. And now it's you know, later in the day, later in the evening, he's calling all around looking for his dad, trying to find him his dad's ex wife comes over to help look and try to find him and just can't make sense. Plus you've had a long flight, so they you know, try to rest up whatever. You know.
What else is well, the other suspicious not suspicious thing is because they talked to the neighbor. They come to a house that was normally filled with things and the place is empty.
Yeah, there's all sorts of furniture missing. And the neighbor lady you know, oh yeah, you all came in the and gee, we heard he was off in Las Vegas. I mean, things just didn't make any sense. This didn't add up. And what is really ironic is that the Ever Police Department gets a phone call pertually the same day from Missus Goudeau, who calls to tell the Ever Police Department that she thinks Barbara Ople is going to kill Jerry Hymen.
Why is that?
Well, that's what the police one know. She wouldn't leave her name. She just got this you know, like crime stoppers tip or whatever. So they get this fellow to like from you know, elderly Services or whatever they call it, to go buy there, to go buy the house and check on him. Well, he shows up it's the next morning, and Greig's there and guys, gee, I'm glad you're okay. So though I'm not my dad, we don't know where my dad is. It's very peculiar that it's all all
kind of you know, happens at the same time. And then of course they now in the daylight, they see there's blood stains on the wheelchair, blood stains a little drops, the blood on the wall and the ceiling, on the chandelier, you know. And then where's Barbara Ople? Where's Barbara and the kids? You know? I mean, they call the cops. The cops are there, and no, sooner do you have
cops there than the phone rings or whatever. And it's one of the other policemen totally disconnected from this, informing them that Barbara Ople has just been in a traffic mishap driving a U haul truck filled with furniture a few blocks away.
Now, what was the other The other thing that was very suspicious was that Jerry, being a business guy, padlocked his bedroom, his office bedroom, his room. And when they came what did they find, which, again, they found.
That everything had been gone through, papers were strewn everywhere. Tornado hit the place, That was also very unustul because I was totally out of character with his father. But no, you don't want to think in your mind that, geez, someone came in here, ransacked my dad's house. My dad's missing, they kidnapped him her. You know, you don't want to put your head in that place, especially after traveling all that way to see your dad. They figured there must
be some rational explanation for this. Well, there never was a rational explanation for any of it, not for the homicide, not for the aftermath, not for the crime or the follow up. The whole thing is irrational.
Well, let's just go back just slightly, because you talked about missus Goodot, and we didn't talk about the information. Where she got this information and what it was.
Is they where she got the information and how the cops knew it was her with the cops had a call her idea on their phone, it showed where they call came from. The reason she called is her husband, Henry I believe his name is. He had been approached by Barbara Ople to kill Jerry Hyman. She says she paid ten grand to do it.
He was her ex girlfriend and they had they'd been together. Drinking.
Yep, he went over there and put away a lot of beer, stayed overnight, and then goes on to his wife and tells her that Barbara offered him, you know, at least ten thousand dollars to kill this guy that does to take care of his mom. He's kind of upset about that. Of course, his wife is double upset, and she tips off the cops just in case. And the timing on that was for a bit of a day earlier. It might have been a big difference, but that's what that's what she called.
Now getting back to the accident that brings her to the police's the police attention through this, the phone call and the other murder plot that just happens to be while they're looking at this scene potentially as a murder least missing person. Now Barbara's in an accident with a step into.
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U Haul, How do police proceed with her? And what exactly are the first responding police? What they talk to Barbara? What do they know or what do they think? And what's there? How do the police proceed?
Well, they really don't know what the hell happened because they don't know where Jerry is now. The here's this is it? It was about i'd say twenty four hours after they arrived, after Greg and Teresa flew in from a seatag. I guess, guys, it was officer sessions. They cut at Barbara Ople and Jeffrey Growt. They had this U haul. We'll get to to who Jeffrey isn't a bit but anyway, Yeah, they were staying at the Roadway Inn, which is a tell in every ball way, not not
really that far from from Jerry's house. Uh so they she was driving, I guess, with suspended licenses and I was supposed to be driving the darn thing anyway. And uh, of course the cops want to interview her and the kids on you know, where they heck is Jerry and while he was staying in a motel and you know, they said, oh, they didn't know that he was out of town. They hadn't seen him in a few days. You know. It wasn't until the cops got the kids,
the youngest ones alone, which is unusual. And I don't know if it's ethical or not, because there are rules about talking to kids, you know, And I think they did have a child protects the services person there, and I believe it was little Teresa is the one that said, oh, Jerry's dead. Just came right out and told him. And then they bring him the sun and he's says, oh, I know where the body is. I don't say where the body is. So now things start to unravel real fast.
But of course people may be asking, why would this woman have her kids murder this guy. What possible motive could there be when he's taking care of them, giving him place to live. Very simple, not the undonsensical, but simple. Barbara Opal discovered that Jerry had forty thousand dollars in his bank account. She wanted the forty thousand, so, gee,
if we killed Jerry, we can get that money. In her mind, now you must understand, and this was used as part of her defense in the trial, that if you're going to kill somebody, not that it's the same thing to do, but if you plan to murder someone and steal their money, you would plan on trying to get away with murder and trying to get away with the money. Barbara, people does not think that far. She
only thought, as far as I want Jerry killed. She had never crossed her mind what she was going to do. Once the body hit the floor, she had never even thought about that, never considered it. What do I do? Now, you know, how do I not get caught? Where do I go? What do I do? None of that, None of that crossed her mind. And that was used as a defense. If you're going to kill someone and steal their money, you have some sort of plan. Well she
didn't none whatsoever. All that did was load up a U haul, take it down the road, park at the parking lot. That stayed in the motel room, and she went out and wrote a check on an apartment for them to live, and put a down payment on an apartment from Jerry's checkbook, and had dinner at Denny's restaurant after he was murdered.
Now let's get to the sorry, let's get to the plan, the murder plant. Though she had she had spoken to her her ex, Henry Goodot, and again obviously he wasn't game for this plan. There was a boy that came into Heather's life. They met at the roller rink, they went bowling the next day. They had sex, as young people do, very quickly at the home at Jerry Hyman's home with the mother present or around the home. And
she knew of this. Oh, yeah, she's like you say, the book tell us, tell us what some mothers might well, what kind of discussion they might have.
With the boyfriend. She wanted to fall guys. She wanted someone who was supposed to being an adult who wasn't the was. She'd apposed a few other people about doing this and they all didn't take her seriously. They said no, but this a nice looking athletics strong guy. And it was a very sports sports person too, like a speed skater type. And uh, maryon Oliver goes up to a Jeff and says, my girlfriend thinks you're cute, go meet her.
So he meets Heather and she's cute and he's not a bad looking guy, asks her to go bowling, as you mentioned, and next thing, you know, one strike, two strikes, and they're having sex in her little brother's bedroom back at Jerry Hyman's house. The mother is totally aware of it. In fact, she's encouraging it, and this is kind of her plan from the get go. She wanted to hook this kid in, so she used her, you know, just
turning fourteen year old daughter's budding sexuality as bait. And when he comes out of the bedroom, she says him down to have a serious talk. It's not about safe sex, it's about murder. As will you you know, poor Heather, will you help Heather kill Jerry? And first he's you know, he's not keen on the idea, but she sweetens the deal. Hey, listen,
I'll get your car some money. Oh oh, in that case, sure, she is picking people, you know, she's hand picking people who are not the most stable, you know, on the ball people on the planet. She's picking people that have either got some sort of weakness to exploit, or some anti social issues, or they're problematic kids in the first place. You know, she lets kids come over and you know, of course it's legal in Washington, but it wasn't legal. Then she's getting them high on pot. Plus she's given
them some alcohol, which has never been legal. There still isn't to give miners alcohol. And she was kind of the party mom, you know. And then she tell them all these stories about how horrible Jerry was, and they just took her word for it. And the youngest ones was the youngest thirteen. They were under the impression all they're going to do is beat this guy up. But
Jeffrey and his cousin. I think do full well of what the plan was, and that was to kill him, because Barbara wanted that forty grand She told her daughter Heather that if you help kill Jerry, I'll get you a brand new dirt bike. Well, and she and Heather rode. In her diary, Bomb says, if I kill Jerry, I could have a dirt bike. Oh boy, there you go.
Now what was you said? That? She's not one for much of a plan at all. But what was the semblance of a plan other than to kill him? Was it to do it? Did she have any idea where they should kill him? How did she kill him? I'll say what the excuse might be? Anything.
Well, first she tried to poison him by putting weed killer in his pizza. That didn't work. So then she enlists these kids. And the idea is, Jerry's going to come home from you know, the local tavern where he has out with his buddies. He's going to come home. You hide and wait for him. When he walks through the door, you beat him to a pulp with baseball bats and then stab him to death. And when he walked through the door, there were these kids, the oldest
one with a full sized bat. The younger ones have these little souvenir bats. And Barbara is downstairs in the basically kind of actor as a cheerleader, you know, yeah, yeah, DoD do do do it. And she's got Mariam Oliver and her two little kids down there with her. When Mariam realizes what's going on, she tries to jump out the window and run away, and one versus the story, Barbara grabs hers says, how can you leave when your best friend is upstairs killing someone? And Heather was upstairs,
how can you leave her? You go up there and help out. In fact, it was Mary Him who goes upstairs. And this guy's been beaten. He's been stabbed by Heather several times, stabbed by Mary him and then finally she takes the baseball bat and crushes his skulls as well. If he wasn't dead before, he is.
Now Now tell us all the members of this little murder squad. We've got Derek the eleven year old, We've got Tiffany the seven year old is there.
Well, they're down in the fat but they're not participating in the in the killing part, right, They in the cleanup. But you have Heather, the daughter, her eighteen year old boyfriend, Jeff, his cousin who is about thirteen fourteen, Kyle, and a couple of buddies that his about the same age, and two of them. When they realize things are going out of hand, that things are more than just beating this
guy up, they immediately leave. They run away because they don't want any part of, you know, something that bad. They just thought, you know, going to punch the guy in the nose. They punched it in the nose, and when he thought they were still getting beaten, they went ah and they ran away. But it was basically came down to Jeff and Heather and Miriam who polished the thing off and now there's blood everywhere and poor Jerry's dead on the floor to make seven year old Tiffany
leaning up the brains in the blood. Then they wrapped the body up in a carpet or whatever and put it in the truck and they got fire where we're going to dump the body and they dump it out on the Indian reservation. I mean, it's just, you know, it's a horri horrible, horrifying story that is made even more horrifying by the ineptitude, stupidity, and irrationality with the people who did it. The whole thing is just trying. And then there are people who had nothing to do
with this who get roped into it. I think it's Kyle's cousin. The girl winds up in the truck with one of these guys. She has no idea what's going on, she doesn't know what's happened, and all of a sudden they're off dumping a body in the woods and she's there. You know. They tell like, don't say anything, will kill you. You know what she's supposed to do. It's a horrifying situation.
What was most horrifying to me in terms of just picturing it is the idea that Jerry Hyman's mother, who oh, yeah, you know he was there.
Yes, they killed Jerry Hymon right in front of his mother, and there was the thing she could do except sit there in the wheelchair and watch incredible And then they left the weather in the dark. They debated whether or not to kill her, but they decided to know they were just they didn't want to do that, so they just left her sitting at the table.
So they knew that they obviously the family knew that she wasn't going to be much of a witness whatsoever.
Oh yeah, because she couldn't talk, you know, she was ah yeah, you know she someone came for it all the time. So they just just left her there, which, Adam, is horrifying enough that they murdered this fellow in front of his mother and then they leave her there in the dark with no food, no water.
You know, now this in short order obviously that the police sort this out because they have the whole family and they have so many people to basically to testify potentially, but also just there were witnesses to this atrocity before we get to the trial. Was there any tell us about that procedure? Was it fairly seamless in terms of it hard to get.
To the facts, very difficult because you're dealing with kids. I mean really, you're dealing with the exception of Jeff, who was eighteen, the rest of these people are thirteen years old, fourteen years old, eleven years old. And they brought in and the court brought in the defense brought in experts on children and children's thought processes, and that they don't even well for the most part, don't eve and understand basic things that are said to them, such
as you have a right to remain silent. They think that means don't make noise in the courtroom. They do, you know, you have a right to legal representation. They even know what that means. You know, you have a right to retain an attorney. What efficult look up the word retain, you know. I mean, they really don't even know what is transpiring, you know, what's at stake of
what's going on. So it's a big issue whether or not these peak these kids should be tried as adults and sent to an adult prison, or whether should they should be tried as adult sense as an adults to spend a certain amount of time in the juvenile prison and then be sent off to the crime school of the big House, you know. So there was a great deal of discussion and legal arguing about what to do
with these kids. It was finally decided, much to their shock, to try all of them as if they were adults, except uh for I think one of the youngest of the boys, uh who ran away when this happened, and uh he didn't get able to say, you know, but uh, in fact, I think when when they were interviewing Heather, and he said, I'm in trouble on't I mean? I'm paraphrasing here, and he says, am I going to have to spend a lot of time in juv meaning juvenile hall.
I only stabbed him, you know, twice or nine times, whatever it was, am I. You know, well, what's a long time to you in juvie? She said, two weeks? You know, she got what like twenty some years?
You know, why? Why did what? How did how did the judge justify this? You've got to you've got a kid again. We're getting into the trial a little bit here, But how does he decline UH to treat her as a juvenile? And and again not every state has UH the ability to under seventeen or under an apartment under sixteen to be able to take somebody to an adult court. So is there no controversy in the law.
It was very controversial at the time. It was because of the especially heinous nature of the crime, you know, the obvious premeditation, the planning, the somewhat humor and delight they seemed to take in him, and they thought it was funny that after he was murdered, they went out to Denny's Restaurant for what was called the Grand Slam Breakfast.
They thought there was rather amusing. I mean, it is so twisted that what they could tell and there, you know, says the evaluations of Heather, because there's this bright, bright girl. And yet to this day, from what I to stand, she does not see her mother in a bad light. She was so much of whatever Mom said was the thing to do. And you know, if Mom, whatever Mom said, you went along with. And if Mom wanted to exaggerate the relationship with her and Jerry, if she no, matter
what she did, she don't cross Mom. Total, total, instant, exact and complete obedience to whatever Mom says.
Now, how did Mom try to defend herself, at least at first to the police and then later at trial was the what was her strategy was? How did she try to get out of this?
She tried to blame everything first on Jeff, that she just wanted him, just wanted Jerry beat up. But it was jeff idea to kill him, Jeff's idea to wrap the body in the carpet, Jeff's idea to dumb the body on the Indian reservation. And then later she tried to blame it all on her daughter, on Heather. She was perfectly willing to throw Heather under the the bus, blame anything to take it off herself. I mean, the
woman's a real piece of work. She's not going to win, you know, Mother of the Year, a queen for a day's staff. Just horrifying.
How did the media respond to this, because this is another dimension to a killer Kids is pretty unusual, you know, but then when you have this killer, a killer mom directing the killer kids, and the kind of details like the seven year old picking up pieces of the skull and putting in the trash and cleaning up the blood, and the eleven year old participating in all of these kids participating, it is a news.
The residual damage of this. Now, when my book Bomb Said Kill first came out in paperback, it was of course on the shelves at the the store, the grocery store or whatever up there in Effort marries Well, Washington, where Tiffany, who was seven at the time, was now of course older. The book came out recently, a couple
of years ago. She requested that the book be taken off the shelves in the store because it was so painful for her to go to the grocery store and see this picture of her mother, you know, on the cover of this book, you know. And he actually they did take the book off the shelf, which I was a too thrilled about, But like, if nothing else is going to remind kiffany of what happened. Yeah, but the brother,
this is really tragic here. His mom has been sent there I'm getting out of the story, but you can figure it out easily enough. The mom is sent to life in prison, his sister is sentenced to for twenty three years or something. What does he want to do? He wants to go to prison too. You know, who wouldn't you Bama's going to prison. I said, what can I do to go to prison? You know, how much trouble can I get in? And how fast? You know, like somehow that's going to read night them or something.
So it's been real problematic for him.
Now at trial. What was the dynamic in terms of if if Barbara's trying to blame her daughter, and Barbara's trying to initially blame the boyfriend, the new boyfriend, I mean it was only a boyfriend. It was a week after he met Heather and well he's in this major trouble. What was the dynamic at court? Who testified against the mother who was the damaging uh oh.
Everybody had their dog testified against the mother. The people who had Henry Grudeau of course testified that she tried to get him to kill And the defense is saying, well, aren't you just saying this is coming to Barbara because they don't want your wife mad at you because she was mad that you spent the night over Barbara's house. And he's going, no, I'm not saying, it's just being to what my wife bad at me. You know, this
is the truth. They were as to a bank robber, Well, I was once, but that with it, you know, the defense really, I mean, she got the best defense one could possibly get under the circumstances. And it's important for people to have the best defense possible because what the defense attorneys are defending here in the States is they're defending the law. They're defending the constitution because you don't
want people convicted if there's reasonable doubt. But in this case, there absolutely was no reasonable doubt as to who did what. Who was all very very clear.
Yeah, absolutely, And now so you say that Heather, and you write in a book too, Heather really doesn't have any it doesn't really hate her.
Mother, no, not at all. They still thinks her mom's just well I mean, I mean kids, everyone wants to love their mother no matter what.
Yeah, and.
Uh, what else can she do? I mean she did. She was a good kid. She did what her mom. You know, always do what your parents say, kids, and you know she did what her mom said.
How does how does Jeffrey g Grow feel about this whole thing?
Well, I think he really felt screwed over in a big way. Interesting that that jeff You know, he got fifty years in prison and he has an ad out there. You know, if you want to write a prisoner about what a nice guy he is and how he likes his soul music and he's into sports and he really likes a good pinpal. Yeah, I mean, because here's another guy whose life was ruined. He could have gone on the rest of his days without probably ever being in trouble. Now that tells us.
Now, now this is a good segue. We can use this as a good segue because again, as I mentioned in the beginning of our program, what I like about your books and what your fans like about your books too, is that there's an added dimension to the story in terms of some analysis. Try to come up with some semblance of sense to this, in terms of again it's a cliche to avoid and prevent, but you really try to do that. You try to go that extra mile
in terms of all the available information. And so in this book which I thought was which was again I'm a little bit of a skeptic, so I can open my mind to this thanks to you, about brain injury and psychopathology in terms of, oh yeah, what can we what can we learn about? Why would these people do this? For this clearly psychopathic woman, Barbara Ople The rewards weren't
that great. These people seem to be decent people, and without like you mentioned, without this faithful circumstance, they would have went on to do nothing like this. So what how now?
Love may have been in trouble a kyle, you know, something like to imagine themselves as being tough, gangsterish guy, you know, at thirteen, playing a role. But when push came to shove, he didn't want to be part of murder, you know. And as for Marriam Oliver, she said, I got mad because she's my best friend. I didn't want anyone hurting her. And uh, you know, Barbara was I was saying, oh, she's your best friend. Don't you want to help her get back at Jerry? He's so mean
to her. The one telephone call, I was looking my own book. Here. She kept asking Marriam. She helped do this murder and a round march. Barbara assisted with several more attempts. One time she asked me, said, Miriam, do you want to kill Jerry with us? I was shocked and I said no. She later had changed her She changed her mind. If we got caught, she was told, blame everything on Jeff. This is what Barbara Opel told
Mary Muliver, if we get caught, blame everything on Jeff. So, I mean, Barbara at least had figured out who she was going to blame for this.
You know.
Now she would always tell these stories. And it's interesting that these dramatic vignettes that she would tell these kids, that Barbara would tell these kids about how bad Jerry was. She would say, he almost hit Heather, he almost hit Derek. I was afraid he was going to hit so and so, or he could have easily hit so and so. Upon reflection, Mary admitted that she never heard of Jerry actually hitting anyone,
only that he almost hit someone. You know, but you keep telling these stories over long enough, long enough these impressionable kids, and they all want a band together to protect poor Heather, to get a dirt bike. So she's keeping her mouth shut.
Yeah, incredible.
It's interesting that wed now you When Heather was a waiting trial and she was in juvie, the other kids in juvie were kind of giving her a bad time. You know, Hey, where's that dirt bike you're gonna get?
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You talked about the psychopaths? Who want me to address that issue. There's two ways that we know of scientifically to be a psychopath. One is this a birth defect of brain processing. People who are psychopaths their brains do not process information the same as people who are not.
Uh.
The expression used by doctor Robert Hare, the world's leading expert who happens to be a Canadian and be quite proud of that is this statement is they know the words, but they can't hear the music. And the example I use is I draw analogy with my brother who is not a psychopath, but my brother is colorblind. You can talk about red, blue, green, and yellow all you want, but he's never seen it, and the expression red hot means nothing to him because he doesn't know what red is.
And all the amount of support groups, all the amount of counseling in the world is not going to endow my brother with the ability to see red, comprehend green or blue or yellow or any of those That chip is missing. Psychopaths are missing the emotion ship. It's not that they are complex people at all, it's just the opposite. Their interior world is very one dimensional, very flat. They see themselves at the center of the universe, see themselves
as victims. They don't care about anybody but themselves. And it's interesting that the psychopathic murderer Hickman was the model for an Rand and her book Antler Shrugged. She thought that the psychopath was a great embodiment of the American spirit because all he cared about was himself. Go figure out.
Well now. But according to Robert Hare, though like just to you know, be Devil's advocate, here is that there are He describes psychopaths who might be a boss, or might be an ambitious will say, I don't know, director or a movie or something very successful, narcissistic, maybe egocentric, maybe verbally abusive to people used to a lot of power. But certainly no one would say, oh yeah, but that means that they have the capacity or the inclination or
any other adjective towards a violent outcome, especially murder. So how can once you identify that somebody has this this.
Effect maybe the subtle difference or not so subtle difference in a sociopath and a psychopath. As doctor Hayre said, the largest collection of sociopaths was the Vancouver' Stock Exchange before was regulated, because they could just take advantage of people like crazy. As I mentioned, the one way of acquiring the psychopathy or to a degree of sociopathy is to be born missing that ship. The other is a head injury coupled with abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, et cetera.
In my book Headshot, there were two psychopaths. One was born that way, the other was made that way. In fact, I was reading it someone's talking about the show I was where we talked about that. It was criticizing us because we laughed about poor Andrew Webb whose mother ran over his head with the car and then realizing what she'd done, she backed up and ran over his head again and said we should have joked about that. But
I mean that was his problem. He is in a home of multi generational incests, and he'd has more than one severe head injury. Now, I am not a psychopath, but I do have some of the characteristics WO would associate with sociopaths, and that I had a head injury, and I am incapable of seeing a connection between crime and punishment punishment, I don't understand the concept. You can talk to me and be reasonable to me about it, but I've yet to grasp what positive effect punishment has
in rectifying a situation. I can see for the purposes of safety and protection of people, of separating the offender from society to protect people from their behavior, but I do not understand the punitive model of punishment at all. I don't see a relationship. I mean there must be one, otherwise it wouldn't exist in society. But I have been capable of comprehending it now that maybe because of the
head injury. I don't know. That doesn't mean that I don't think that anything should be done with people who commit, you know, violent acts. But I look at it more from the same point of protecting people from their behavior and seeing what can be done to rehabilitate them. It's just like with the studies have shown that the more you punish someone for lying, the more they lie and the more marketing. Though.
What you're exhibiting, though, is empathy, which is what probably the true sociopath has little of, because obviously you come to this conclusion they they can't empathize.
They can mimic, they can cry on cue. They're very good at crying. Sure, they can mimic behaviors, but they don't experience them. Whether they're carving a turkey or carving a person doesn't seem to make much difference. It's interesting there is a website for sociopaths run by sociopaths and as the stay is that I don't do any of those bad things because if I do, my life will be miserable, and being is that my life is the
only one I care about. I don't want to be miserable. Yeah, you know, they say that a third grade teacher can spot can spot these people a mile away when they're young, and if you can get to them when they're young, way prior to the age of fourteen, because about fourteen is when they start showing up in the legal system because they get in trouble. But if you can get them when they're really little and teach them that they can have perfectly fine, rewarding lives, and their lives will
be more rewarding if they don't mistreat other people. Now, whether that means not cheating them in business, you know that their life will be happier, and that's the only life they care about is theirs if they don't do
those things. So as a matter of finding a proper motivation for the appropriate behavior, well, I can agree with you there that at least this is a tangible attempt to address the problem, because, like I say, I think that the phenomena of kids killing their parents or someone you know in their family is incredible enough and unusual enough and in a super disturbing trend. But this story illustrates that there might be more to come in the
near future. I mean in terms of if you can get ten kids to be involved in something like this, it's we've got to have some kind of intervention, especially when you have an authority figure such as the mother who is also very friendly facilitates their problems, always say, by giving them alcohol giving them drugs, hooks them in with these stories of righteous indignation. She's not telling them really that, hey, I want to get my hands on this forty thousand. She tells them, I'll get your car.
You know what she say to Jeff, She says, keep your mouth shut when they go, when the cops come, he says, keep your mouth shut, and you can borrow the car anytime you want. Just say the word. I'll give you the keys, but keep your mouth shut. Meanwhile, she's planning to blame everything on him.
Wow, now this story too, Burrow has has has got a lot of legs because this thing has been turned into a couple programs with your friend and again if I've mispronounced this, Darren, because they yeah, tell us about your appearances on Investigation Discovery. I saw you last year and it was it was great seeing the super serious Burrow Bear and they really utilized you in that program. It was a great program too. It really was a ver great documentary.
Very fortunate with Investigation Discovery there's a lot of different shows. They are over done by different producers from different countries Summer, Canadian, summer, Australian summer, American. And I've done, Scorns, Snap Behind Mansion Walls, Deadly Women, Deadly Sins, Motives and murders. I really must compliment, especially motives and murders. Cracking the Case is the name of the show I was on that recently. The story
about it I didn't do. I just did a mini book called a Murderer on nine to eleven about the murder of Robert Henry in Tacoma, Washington. They did just a beautiful job on that show, and Deadly Sins also does a great job. I just went on Deadly since last Saturday on a case that I haven't written a book about, and Iron there going to be on again
February eighth with Frank Gerardo is another great journalist. We'll be talking about the Mainlean Williams homicide case down Aeron, California, which is another real shocker and interesting thing about Deadly Sins. Is Darren and I. He is on the board of
directors of what's called Writers in Treatment. It's a non profit organization started by Leonard Bruschell and Robert Dunnyr that offers treatment and financial aid for treatment for people who write, who make a living writing or working in the writing and publishing industry who may have developed problems with alcohol, drugs or gambling or anything like that that have become
a problem. And a lot of people who are writers don't have insurance this type of thing, and there's kind of the wherewall they get help, and so Writers and Treatment helps out. They also put almost called the Real Recovery Film Festival in a number of cities and every year they give the Experience, Strength and the Hope Awards, hosted by Ed Bigley Junior and Robert Dunney Junior. He had two juniors there last year giving toward the brand.
And I'm on the advisory board, so he's not exactipescially, I'm on the advisory board. So we wound up meeting through Leonard and Darren's a guy got this idea of doing a book called Deadly Sins where we, you know, we do different stories about these seven deadly sins that you know. This is when Charlie Sheen was going through all of his stuff and we thought to be a
cool book. Well wound up not being a book. We didn't follow through with that wound up being a TV series and with Darren hosting it and his people inviting me to participate in doing shows based on either books. I've written more cases that I have suggested to them, and they've been great to work with and I'm very proud to be associated with them and also interesting. He did an adaptation of Moms to Kill several years ago, and he still run on Deadly Women episode called Bloodlines,
and then the on Deadly Sins. It was also done with the title Mommy's Little Killers, and both of them are available online to watch, and they both did very good adaptations of the story. I was very pleased.
Oh that's great, Yeah, that's it's always great promotion when you've got so many people watching Investigation Discovery. And then you know, again, there's so many stories out there competing for people's attention, and well.
Yeah, but it's nice, I think. On the other but the same token, there's only so many stories, you know, for adaptation. Well, rather, it wasn't planned this way, but Mommy's Little Killers was like the first episode I think of season two of Deadly Sins, and the same week, like a day before on a rerun on Investigation Discovery was Deadly Women episode Bloodlines was just the same story.
It wasn't planned that way, It just happened that way that two different shows have the same crime, the same story, you know, the same week. That's what they're always follow stuff.
Well, it's really nice because they get I guess the reader gets to see because you know, gets a rare to rarely get to see you live and do something like this, which is this great promo, adds another dimension to the book. And of course it can't do it can't harm anybody looking to find another book. That's fascinating to have that kind of promotion and that kind of high profile treatment of a story.
What I like about investigation Discovery I think is maybe true with what's called the Climate Investigation, which is a very similar network that they have in the UK and maybe they have it in Canada, but all the same programming that these people do read and they spend more time watching the show than people do one other network. So they're into it. They're into it a little different. Fenthanstic great audience, which doesn't tend to be show we say book readers more literally.
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, I got here to beat up on Nancy Grace.
I want to beat up on Nancy, But uh, I think it's a different, different crowd. Yeah, different crowd, and I really always pleased to be on an ID network and uh there and of course they have known him for a few years now, and he was a guest of my radio show last week.
Yeah, and it's interesting too that the the the foundation that he has because he's had some issues himself and so it's nice to see him put his time and effort into that. And that's if people want to go a lot at the interview, and we should put a little we should pull a plug in for your fine program as well. Burrow with True Crime Uncensored on Saturdays on Outlaw Radio. Give us a little bit more information about that.
Oh yeah, that's Uh, we've got a nice little line up a programs on Outlaw Radio USA. So if you go to Outlaw Radio USA dot com, let's say about saying about Matt Allen and Devens of Decadence. Actually, so everything is broadcast live from the replica of an eighteen seventy six Virginia City style bar building Matt Allen's backyard in the Olds of California. And he's been doing his law radio show for several years, many many years, more
than a decade. And then he approached me about doing a show, and so if we all do a true crime show, And I started out about five six years ago, first with Don Woldman as my co host, and now with Howard Lapedis we Jokeke. He's manager to the star. He manages doctor Drew Pinsky. Well, he also manages Darren Kevinoki and Burl Bear, among others. So still with him
and our fact checker, Mark Boyer. And right before our show at one o'clock, LORII Doowney, we call Laurie Downey Junior, the widow of the great Morton Downey Junior, and Lynette Miller to a new show called Broad's Casting. Uh, there's too broad podcasting. Uh. Then our show True Crime on Sensor. Then Matt Allen and the Demons of Decadence including Howard, myself and Mark and all sorts of other fun and exciting people going to pass out.
Basically, yeah, it's a great it's a great show, great guests, and it's a lot of fun too. It's uh yeah, people who knew true yeah, that well, that was kind of our approach, and some people kind of, you know, go geez, what are we getting into here. But with the exception of a couple really tragic ones where we had the you know, the mother of the murdered person on the show, where we've had to be a little more.
I mean, the crimes, et cetera are are always horrifying, and maybe it's gallows humor, but we've tried to, you know, do the same thing. You do, get to the meat of the matter.
Uh.
I concentrate on the story and Howard concentrates on the personal life the author. Except for me, I've when Aaron Moriarity or Harry Droven or someone's on the show. It's well known that the first question I always ask is what are you wearing?
Yeah, it's great, it's a great program. So I wanted to mention too that I'm really happy to have Audible as a sponsor of True Murder. And like I said, this episode of True Murder was brought to you by Audible, world's leading name and digital audio books. Do you do you have any are there any Do you have any negotiations with any of your books to be released through Audible in the near future.
Well, they could be if I would get off my literary posterior and I have the Audible the audio rights, and uh, it's just a matter of me taking the time to get, you know, kind of deal with the narrator and go through that process that you go through. It's very easy to do. It's just that I've been so busy. It's just one more thing I haven't done yet.
Absolutely.
But when I first heard about Audible to gee, it goes back about several years ago, but I'm not that many people had heard of it. And there was a guy knew that was doing like a fantasy or science fiction series and had him up on Audible and he was doing remarkably well. People were loving that stuff and I've never even heard of it before. I've heard of audio books before, but I hadn't heard of Audible until they turned me onto it. And I've been really impressed.
And so I'm happy to hear that you've got them as a sponsor on your show.
Yeah. Thanks, Yeah that right now. Audible has a thirty day free trial where you can choose the book of your desire and download it and experience I mean, for people that don't know. The first audiobook that I listened to was Steven Singular BTK, and so it came in a big box.
That great author you had Steven on your show, what a great guysident. Well, if you really want to have a conversation, asked about the O. J. Simpson case.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's the only the only one of the only programs I haven't covered yet, and I plan to do that because that's of course that captivated everyone's imagination everywhere that the image of him in the slow speed chase with in his bronco was indelible.
I would think. I'll tell you, Steven, Stephen really was found himself in a lynchpin role in that trial because he received inside information from the LAPD on evidence being on why the blood samples are not being given to the defense. The defense thought it was the prosecution it was selling him, but it wasn't. It was the l A p D. Because they knew there was something wrong with the blood evidence. They didn't want the defense to
know about it. Of course, that's when so Stephen winds up being part of the story, and journalists don't like to be part of the story. But there was no way that he could not be, you know, And and that's one major reason why the jury came back with the guilty verdict was that the blood of it this was all tainted with that preservative. It was the blood that O Jay gave when he got back from Chicago, not blood for the night of the crime, which put a whole new dimension on things.
So yeah, contacts Stephen too. He probably has He probably has the bt K book out on audiobooks, so that might be interesting case to revisit around it.
Doing that, I should not know what I should narrate on myself, Whether I should have it, I think so.
No, you got a great voice, Burl, you should. You should marry I think I think it would be add another dimension to it, that where you actually talk about intimate because there is so much of your character in these books. A lot of a lot of people don't uh interject themselves, inject themselves into the story, and you do.
You've always the one where I really do. And maybe I'll come back on your show if you want in a few months to talk about I have a book coming out very soon called Man Overboard, The Counterfeit Resurrection
of Phil Champagne. It's the twentieth anniversary edition. It was the first true crime book I ever did, and it is one where I interject more than you have ever heard an author doing a true crime book before it's actually a funny true crime book, and whether it is true or a pack of lies is for the audience to decide. But twenty years ago it was nominated for Best True Crime Book of the Year the World District Convention, didn't win, but was nominated. And the twentieth anniversary edition
updated with new information. And it'll be coming out in paperback and in electronic and probably an audible as well, And that's coming out soon. That's one where there are some sort of some some rules to true crime that are real common between the books with them, whether it's Soon, Kensington or Berkeley or whatever. But that particular book violates all the rules.
Well I gotta I gotta read it then for sure, if it broke all the rules, I know all about that. Also, Jack jack Olsen, who was the America's Dean of True Crime, he loved it. He tracked me down just to tell me, how about you loved the book, which really meant a lot to me.
Uh.
He was forkind of a mentor to me and a big helped him by us. Has got out a true crime while you can? You know?
Jack Olson? Jack Olson was the in my estimation the best true crime author, not that you know, there are there's great authors like yourself, but there's great authors, but Jack Olson still selection and he just was the master. I mean everything he wrote was just you. You were involved.
I'll tell you immediately, Old Jack, when I read the opening page of his book Salt of the Earth, I wanted to just take my word processor and throw in the I told him, if I could ever write half as well as you do in that opening page of Soul of the Earth, I'd be a happy man. Yeah. Yeah, don't worry, kid, you'll get there. Just keep pounting the line. But he was brilliant, brilliant author, brilliant author.
Well he influenced me with his last book, and I didn't know it was going to be his last, but it really it was his last book. And that was I Creation of a serial Killer, which is the the Jessperson Keith Hunter Jessperson story and in Your Neck of the Woods. So yeah, that was that was an eye opener.
This is the last true crime book I'm ever going to write, because I promise I've never going to write another one. Well, unfortunately he was right, because he passed away.
Well you know, he was I think he almost you know, redefined the genre or he tried to do with that book in terms of uh, really letting the killer, because he really had this very unusual killer jesperson where he really wanted to talk and was quite articulate, and he certainly wasn't shy about his motives or he was very forthcoming, which is not always the norm.
Well, you're your guy, your guy, should call it your guy, but you're the fellow who got hold you to do trophy kill. I mean this guy, he certainly was very cooperative and telling you all of his distorted, sick, perverse reasons for doing what he did.
Yeah. Yeah, he's very similar to.
I can't see him. Yeah, he's very similar in this guy.
Yeah, he's he's among the very few that really want to talk that much. You know, the Dennis Nielsen's and the Jasperson's. There's a few. There are a few of them, and I would speculate that there's going to be a lot more. When you start having television programs where they're there have a serial killer on the phone line. It seems to be an indication that these guys all want to be famous, all want their little a moment in the.
Sales of the Belgian court too. For the most part, their egos are so huge he can't fit them and the maturia to the court room at the same time.
Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, that where I'm looking forward to the Luca Magnotic case, which will be probably in about a year from Montreal, where he sent the body parts to the police and to an elementary school of his victim, and then also had posted the killing and the murder of and supposed necrophilia of the victim as well online and then then it's escaped to Germany, Berlin and then Paris.
So you know, well I just got out. But you and I were on your show several months ago talking about my book Body Account about the Folkane serial killer Robert Lee Yates. I just could have formed this going to be a sixth part documentary, done great on that, And they got hold of me and asked if I would participate, and I said, just get out of your check book.
But and what where's that going to be on?
What what would be different investigation discoveries being done by a production company called story House, and uh, they were trying to decide between that and the Hillside Strangler case. And they decided to do it on Robert Lee Yates. Oh good choice, I think, so we'll see.
Yeah, well, you've written a great book about it, and and you're you're you know, accessible Hillside Strangler. I think the I think that it might be hard to get a hold of the authors of that, or maybe it's not so familiar in people's minds anymore. Of the Hillside that's a long time ago.
Yes, it's always difficult to find some of the witnesses of some of the people you talk to on any case after a number of years, because they tend to either evaporate or many of them pass away, you know, And it's being satifficult. But at least with the Robert Lee Yate's case, people still around, families of the victims and brothers and sisters and people who knew him. I knew the victim of as I did.
So. Yeah.
Well, even in Fatal Beauty, of the book about Ronda Glover, she participated, as you're mentioning Jack Oldsen's book, I let her comment on everything she wanted to comment on and put it in the book. Some people didn't care for that one. You talk about people who liked by putting things into context. There's probably a people with a greater number of PEO people who don't. But you know, for
an author, you have to. You know, my editor told me Mike Keilla Hamilton, the candidates that don't read the reviews on Amazon because people will go after you on all the better things. If it gets to you, it will affect your writing. She was right. It did you get to me, and it did affect my writing. But I was doing beauty and she finds it. Hey, you've written books before. Just write the book, you know, don't pity attention to it.
It's hard to comprehend how people would would write such a scathing personal review, and I think that's the thing that no one is really used to. And then it's like, uh, I don't know. I don't know if this is the word troll, but it's somebody that goes out of their way to be nasty on online because they are anonymous. I mean not to say that there aren't valid bad reviews of my book or anyone's book, but I don't find.
A book that one gives a bad route, gives it a negative review because they didn't like the narrative style I use. It was published Weekly said that were they rightly recognized what I was doing stylistically, which was doing that particular book as if it were a television documentary except written and not visual, And that was I purposely chose that style. It was an experiment, and they said, yeah, that's what he did. But the problem is is that's
what it feels like. Well I wanted to feel like that, but they didn't that. That's what I call it vallet criticism. But to give a book one star because the crime is so horrifying, what's have to do with.
Yeah, Like I say, some people are new to true crime, and I think it's it shocks them to comprehend what it's all about. So because he typically that.
The book would have been better been written from the perspective of the killer, Well, in a non fiction book, you cannot write a book that has interior dialogue, like you can't on a novel what people are thinking because it's a true story and you're not in their head. You don't know what they were thinking, so you can't say. Now,
that was what was problematic with Truman. Capodi's In Cold Blood brilliant book, but he made it it was like a doctor drama he novelized it, and he has interior dialogue, which in journalistic true crime is a no. No, you know, it's a different art form, and tell you it's a different form entirely. There's no way I can say it. Then Dan was thinking such and such. Well, I don't know what Dan's thinking. You know, in a fiction novel, I could do that, but not as a journalist.
Well Olson Jack Olsen pointed out some things that he was quite critical of Capodi in Cold Blood because everyone that hadn't read it, and I still talk to people who haven't read it talk about how revolutionary it was and what incredible true crime book was. And I said, yeah, but listen to this. His editor or a part of me, the publisher paid an incredible amount of money to be able to hire to be able to stall the foregone conclusion of the trial itself, So a lot of money
was spent him to have access. Then he betrayed that killer, and then after and took no notes and then created dialogue and made composite characters, so that book wouldn't get published today. No, I can't see it published.
But the books like say Sleepers by Lorenzo Katerra, great book excellent movie with Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffit and Kevin Bacon and originally came out as a true crime book and it's not true. It's not true at all, but it's a very entertaining book and a very entertaining movie. So Jack and Garry C. King and have six seven other true crime authors all got together and petitioned the
publisher please not being against the Reds. We like him and glad he's making money, but please don't call this a true story. Please don't call the true crime book because it's not. It's not a true story. And so when the movie came out, it is based on the controversial novel by the Reds rather than say a shocking true story, because they know it's a great book, but it's just not a true story. Yeah. Well that's fired by events that might have happened.
Yeah yeah, well, Burl, I got to get back to a little bit of this Audible just for our audience, please do. I wanted to tell people that Audible has a thirty day free trial and again where you can choose the book of your desire and really experience Audible's digital audiobooks. I guess you know this. They have over one hundred and fifty thousand titles and that's a growing list. And as you know, they have the very best narrators and also.
Are is a og the actor had author and director Ian Ogilvie, who played Simon Templar in Return of the Saint and has even been a co host of Miny a couple of times on True Crime on Sensored. Uh does many of the James Bond books and does a great job. Yeah, in the in the Bond with Ogilvy books from Audible.
And you you were commissioned to do from the Estate of the Saint as well to write new books. Where are you in that project right now?
Well as the first one, Captured the Saying, came out several years ago to I can't say universally good reviews, but majority of good reviews. And uh uh the second one, which I had held off writing it because we sort of had a TV series forthcoming, so I kept stopping because I wanted to be sure you because it was consistent with the TV show, and there was a new pilot done with Adam Rayner doing a great job playing
the Saint. And then there's some some problems there with the mister Rayner not being able to stay with the role. But I've got a second novel with various titles, he called Return of the Saints, say in the twenty first century whatever. That's just about almost half done. I keep putting it on the shelf and taking it off. Meanwhile, Ian Dickerson is about halfway into also writing original Saint novels.
I think Saint fans will get a double Wayamie sometime in twenty fourteen if we both finish our novels and they both come out.
So Wow, that'd be exciting to have that on Audible, wouldn't it.
Yeah? Oh yeah. There are some of the other same books on Audible, I believe, but I think those will be also, so Saint fans are willing to look forward.
Yeah, that'd be great. You're a busy guy.
Yeah, you know what I've I didn't know you're working on. Pardon me if you got another gruesome case you're working on.
Well, they're always gruesome. I mean it's Canada, after all, and you know somebody's got somebody's got to put a spotlight on these. I think that the Luca Magnott of the case is what I want to work on because it I think it has some international legs. There was
a case here in Winnipeg. I would have written a book, but I would have betrayed a confidence in someone that I'm working on another project, and it but involves I just can't even believe the police response, the courts, just when I think I know the depth of it's not even leniency, just the well, not corruption, no, no, it's just it's a just a different mindset, just the the sorry state of our our legal affairs. And in Canada, the judicial system is just jammed. They're like they're handcuffed,
they can't deal with anything. But the lawyer for the serial killer named Sean Cameron Lamb said to his client, You're going to be the first serial killer released in North America.
Oh really, so yeah, So this.
Is a guy that oh, it's a it's a. It's a it's I'm going to be doing the story, probably on the program, just because it's just all bottled up in my head. And I had done a fair amount of research and with a partner, we had contacted Sean Cameron Lamb, and then the trial happened lickety split. And but it's a real case of again. You know, women categorized as prostitutes, but I I just categorized them as victims. Happen to be on the street where the serial killer
is trolling. And you won't believe the dynamics.
Why they picked them, because they are viewed as disposable human beings as long as they're killing them, that are not killing real people. Well guess what, they are real people, just as real as you are anybody else. They got kids, they got family that loves them, they got the you know, the whole, the whole. They're real human beings. And uh, it's just tragic. I mean, this is something that really
I get on my soapbox about. And you had, oh you know the woman wrote on the farm about the pig farmer guy Cevie Cameron.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Camera.
Now that's they couldn't even get that book out for like eight years because of your laws in Canaday. You can't talk about a case it hasn't resultd yet or it can't write about it. Uh, that book to come out.
Yeah, and then you know, Canadians didn't learn a single thing from the most expensive trial in Canadian history and then the subsequent most expensive inquiry into what went wrong, well, no one noticed and it really didn't mount to anything, but they spent a boatload of money for a millionaire serial killer. So incredible, incredible story that not enough people really Again, it.
Had elements so tragic that the police knew what was going on, even knew who was doing it, but look the other way because they didn't have the budget, they didn't have the training, and besides, who cares.
Well, there's a little more, a little more to that, but it's it's it's when you see some of these stories, especially in Canada, that no one really examines. For what you can really learn from them is that there is
i have to say, police ineptitude. Then there is this the chicanery basically that can go on in the trial from someone's perspective, and and maybe it's a defense or again the sort of handicap natural Canadian handicapped of the prosecutors and you kind of just throw your hands up in the air and you can't believe eve that we can't bear you know, we couldn't even get a conviction
for more than six murders second degree. Yet there was remains of upwards of thirty people at that farm and only six people, six families had the I guess, the right to have their trial heard in the court of Luck Canada. Canadian judicial system couldn't process those thirty trials, so the other people did not get their semblance of justice at trial. And again that's not a story, so
it's not something you would see in America. At least they do at least some lip service to the victims' families and include them somewhat in the decision and.
Maritter what they had to do with the serial killer cases, the one that has the most amount of evidence is the one they don't use because that way, if they the other ones failed, they've got that one for backup.
Yeah.
Yeah, but this was when you have all of it was to me, I think if a prosecutor looked at it in America, they would they would not have the same outcome in terms of that inability to be able to try more than six cases. And certainly, I think anybody were to look at this in the precursory way, they would realize that in America, you certainly, I think you'd get a first degree murder conviction after you had twenty six bodies on your property property.
I mean, it depends on how many they charge you with. Robertlee, I can't remember how many they charged you with. It didn't charge them with all eighteen or whatever. Of course he confess it, cut a deal, and then they were nigged on the deal, which is kind of unfortunate. So that's what they did. Have a trial second come around for the US in Pierce County and everything regardless, Cancaty ones with seals, So there was nothing there because you know,
he cut a deal. But you know, if you you have to put the jury of it into basically trying six different homicide cases, six different defenses, you know, I mean that's really extreme. If you get enough to if you're pretty sure this guy did it and you know you won't confess, well, then you pick the best ones you have or the second best ones you have, maybe two or three of them, and go for it to get him convicted. Well, then you have a situation like
Willis Wilson. I don't think you've had on, but he was charged with kidnapping a woman, holding her at knife point and force you to perform various sexual acts, and they wanted to connect him to six homicides, exact same motus operatics is also killing kids, et cetera. We'll turn
out they had the wrong guy. But they browbeat this guy to try to get him to confess, to cut a plea bargain deal that he wouldn't get the death penalty, and the whole time he can say, but it's not me, it's not me, and the eyewitnessed the woman said, oh, that's him. She picked him out of the lineup. Well, that wasn't too difficult. He was the only guy in the lineup who looked like the description. But he wasn't the guy. He wasn't the killer, He wasn't even the
guy who kidnapped her at all. Fortunately, the jury came back with not guilty, and the judge looked at and said, son, you've been through a hell of a lot. I've taken you out for ice cream. And then the ironic thing is that Willis actually was sitting at a bar and in comes the real guy sits down next to him
one each. Of course, the real guy doesn't know who Willis is, and Wilson's looking this guy over and he fits the description perfectly right under the rand his shoes and found out for the guy where was going actually called the cops is the real guy, and he didn't want to hear about it. To go away. We don't even talk to you. Go away. They're mad at him, but he wasn't guilted. Yeah.
Well, when they've made up their minds and the prosecutors have done the work, it's it's hard for them to admit mistakes, and that ego is disturbing. I think's where it's nice to see.
Get getting out of prison after serving twenty years for murder that they didn't commit. You know, the post traumatic stress syndrome of being convicted of something you didn't do is batter not being accused of something you didn't do, but to be convicted.
You know, I don't understand how with all the checks and balances and on all the points he had incredible system can can can rupt it?
Or like I have seen this is tragic but true. I have seen had a blank piece of paper to someone say just sign your name to this, we'll fill in the rest. I have seen signed confessions where the name is misspelled and the handwriting is wrong. You know, people are very naive when they I don't know what it's like in Canada, but you've got wonderful dedicated homicide detectives. He has a wonderful, dedicated police and then you have just the opposite, and it's harder than hell to get
the crooked, corrupt ones out once they're in. And I had a guy of the fellow who I called America's favorite corrupt cop, wrote the book Chili Pippin in Atlantic City. I don't know if you've read that book or talked to that author, but he was the most corrupt cop in the history of the New York Police Department. Never got arrested, never got punished. He wrote a book about it. But how that was his goal. His goal in light was to be a corrupt cop in New York and
he achieved his goal. And he is brutally honest on all the levels of corruption and all the different internal gangs of police that specialize in this type of corruption, that type of corruption, framing people of planning evidence. You know why they do it, and you know what they get out. It was very fascinating. It was also very upsetting.
Yeah, I don't know if I've heard the program. I've seen it up on your on your list. It was a little it was a while ago, maybe a couple of years ago. I remember the reading the description of the story. Yeah, well, Burl, we're going to have to have you back on with Men Overboard. Hopefully.
It's always being the criminal. Phil Champagne by Buddy GM for the Mis' is a big kick out of this. It's the only true crime book signing he's aware of where the true crime author took the criminal with him to the book signings. You can get your by the author and by the criminal.
Nice bonus.
Yeah. Nice. So you get to meet the criminal, yeah, because he was out of prison by the said and the book came out, so he went on a book tour. They could have him on the show too at the same time.
Just don't give him your number, yeah, any personal information to the guy. Yeah yeah, Now I wanted to say too. We were talking about Audible and I got to do this one more time here because I want people to visit Audible right now because of this thirty day free trial, and when they do visit Audible, visit audible dot com slash true Murder tell him Dan sent you, and this is to sign up today for a thirty day free trial.
And I'm happy to have Audible here as the sponsor of the program And I also wanted to say that I didn't know this, but they are the biggest producer of spoken audio entertainment informational and educational programming on the Internet. They do audio versions of magazines and newspapers, television programs,
and radio programs, so they're very deep. They're an Amazon company and Audible as again, I remember seeing audio books at about one hundred and fifty dollars for a box set, and you know with postage when you start sending six or eight CDs in the mail in a plastic box with shipping, Canada is much worse than the US in
terms of shipping rates. So it's nice to see. It's nice to see the book come over the internet when that spur of the moment comes to you, Hey, I'd like to get Burrow Bear's book or any of the great authors around True Murder one of their books. And Audible has a great narrator, and I think people that, again, an e book is reading a book, and again, of course there's nothing like reading a book, but there is nothing like listening to someone read a book to you as well.
And there's a lot of.
People, a lot of fans that access on iPhones and try to maximize their entertainment time. And I think this is just another dimension for the diehard true crime fan now to be able to when they don't have the time to listen to somebody read Burl Bear's book to you and maximize your entertainment. It'd be nice.
How we're doing dinner? I can spell my dinner cooking.
Yeah, well it must be burning by now.
Yeah.
Now we're going to wrap up now, I guess, Burl, And thank you very much for coming on and talking about Mom said kill. It's always a pleasure to have you on the program.
It's available in every known e book format. Uh, get it from Amazon of course, and the Kindle and also in all the other formats. You might be able to find it in paperback, but it might be us and I prefer you got a new Yeah, absolutely, check with Amazon, yeah CA in Canada and see if they got the paperback or it's available as an ebook in your favorite format.
Yeah. And then for those listening to the program too, you have about six other true crime books and more on the way, I believe, and so stay tuned for more fascinating stories from Burrough Bear. With his books. You've been doing this for maybe twenty years now, haven't you broke?
Oh? Yeah, the first true crime book was two thousand. Well actually before that, Matt Overboard has in nineteen ninety eight, but then two thousand with Murder in the Family for Kensington, And how long I've been with Kensington now is fourteen years now. Well, anyway, that's great for having me on. I always appreciated Danny do a great show where we talk about you on my show, so.
I know fares up.
We just say go listen to the Dan show. They showed up for your show.
Yeah, we both had that sort of our guest. So we were looking around, where where is that guest? We haven't heard from him, so sometimes that makes for a great program. When the guy didn't show up, I had a great time listening to you guys kept saying, no, he's the least still not here, but
Yeah, great, have a great night, Dad, Thank you, thank you, good night, bye bye.